


Your Heart's a Bird [Without the Wings to Fly]

by Hedgi



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Caitlin worries! as she should!, Episode Reaction, Episode Tag, Gen, cisco had a rough day and has been carrying a lot around, light shipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:35:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23125597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hedgi/pseuds/Hedgi
Summary: reaction to 6 x 14Cisco has had a long day. Cisco has had long day after long day for years. Finally, he says some of what's been weighing on him.Caitlin heard what Thawne said, and she's going to make sure that the most important person in her life isn't just putting on a false front and pretending to be fine.Or, Cisco and Caitlin talk, and listen to what isn't said.
Relationships: Cisco Ramon & Caitlin Snow, Cisco Ramon/Caitlin Snow
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	Your Heart's a Bird [Without the Wings to Fly]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mosylu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/gifts).



> For Mosylu's birthday! I had a lot of different thoughts and this kinda went in two directions so sorry if it's a little muddled. Hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Title from Ruelle's "Carry You"

Two cups of coffee in hand and a box of girl scout cookies under one arm, Caitlin went Cisco hunting. She was pretty sure he was still at STAR, since Kamilla had left and the van he’d taken on the road trip was still in the garage. She checked his lab, his tools in their places and Chester’s tucked in a corner out of the way. He wasn’t lurking in the Medbay, which was both a comfort and a disappointment, and the cortex was empty. She hoped he wasn’t down by the pipeline. For all it was their place to talk…. She hoped he wasn’t there, not knowing who it currently contained.    
  
Thankfully, she found him upstairs, not down.    
  
Caitlin settled herself carefully on the couch in the upper lounge. “Are you going to be ok?”   
Cisco turned from where he was staring out the window and gave her an easy smile, one she knew well. “Yeah, just a little, not jetlagged, uh Travel tired. That’s a thing, that’s not the right name, but it feels like it should be. Alliterative. Better than Turtle Two, but…”    
  
Caitlin sighed, deeply. She knew that easy smile. The fake smile that said “ everything is perfect and fine don’t check my lab full of smoke no need to do that nope hahaha what who blew up a microwave heh nah not here.” She’d just thought-- hoped-- that he wouldn’t lie to her face about it, after all they’d been through. “Cisco,” she interrupted the tangent about the naming of new, post-Crisis supervillains. “You know that’s not what I meant.”   
  
“...I’m fine,” he said again, more quietly, shrugging lightly. “Really.” The smile was less easy, this time.   
  
“You’re not,” she said softly. “I saw him. I heard him.”   
  
“And it’s just like every February,” Cisco shot back. “Every year, someone tries to--and it’s usually him. And we--he’s the one in the--” his hands fluttered, like he was trying to pull the right words out of the air, ghosts his fingers couldn’t touch. “We won again, so…”   
  
“So it doesn’t matter?” she countered, her voice a little sharper than intended. The day’s events, the worry in the air, had affected her more than she’d thought. The caffeine probably wouldn’t help, but she drank anyways.    
  
“Well, does it?” Cisco asked, leaning back again, staring straight ahead.    
  
Caitlin had expected several possible responses, mostly along the lines of changing the subject. Frost’s voice in her mind echoed with what could only be translated as ???!!!! as Caitlin jolted so hard she lost her hold on her mug. The coffee would stain the couch, she knew, but  _ that  _ didn’t matter. “You almost died, of course it matters!”

“I’ve almost died before, Cait. I  _ have _ died before.”   
  
“In timelines where the rest of the world went to shit almost instantaneously! And those times-- that mattered, too, Cisco, how can you  _ say _ something like that?”  _ To me,  _ she wanted to add.  _ How could you say something like that to me.  _ But she did not say it.

“Yeah, well, no more reset buttons for us,” Cisco muttered. He looked at the coffee, puddling on the floor, his own untouched cup. 

  
“This isn’t about the Speedforce,” Caitlin huffed. “This is about you.”

“I just mean--it’s not--”   
  
“If you say that your almost dying isn’t  _ important, _ I am going to get Ralph and make you listen to an entire binder full of reasons why it is, so help me.” Caitlin threatened.    
  
Cisco turned to face her, moving so quickly his loose hair fanned out, almost brushing against her cheek. “ Ralph has a binder for that?”   
  
“Not yet, don’t change the subject.” She did not say, _Ralph doesn't but I do_ and instead shook her head. “Do you really think it wouldn’t have mattered?”

“No? Yes? I don’t know. What am I supposed to say?” he asked finally. “‘No, I’m not fine’? Caitlin, none of us have been fine for more than a week at a time since 2013. Maybe a couple of weeks if we got lucky but even that wasn’t really fine. It sucked! Dying sucked! Almost dying--I was terrified. But I can’t change it. It happened, it’s done, Thawne’s locked up and...”   
  
Caitlin reached across the space between them. He didn’t pull away. His hand still bore a faint scar from Cicada’s dagger, though the wound had been over a year prior. It was, Caitlin thought, just one more reminder of one more trauma. They’d all been through more than their share.   
  
“I just thought maybe this year things would be different.” He shrugged one shoulder, lopsided. “I’m not Vibe anymore. I don’t have the powers he gave me. I don’t even spend much time at STAR now… I just thought, maybe, if I tried to move in another direction. If I tried to be… someone else. But no. He still somehow crossed time and space to mess with me, again, and…” He rubbed at his eyes, tired. “And it just feels like it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change. I don’t...change. Everyone else has. I just feel like I’m stuck. In the same spot. I thought, maybe trying to have a relationship with someone outside this, not having those powers, going on that road trip, letting Chester deal with stuff here...but the only things that’ve changed about me are the things I don’t want to change. And now Barry’s losing his powers and I don’t have… mine, and Thawne’s still in our basement.”   
  
Caitlin let him speak, not interrupting.  
  
"And I can’t sleep," he said after a moment. "The dreams..."  
  
"I --" Caitlin frowned. "I thought that was just... your double...that was over.."  
  
Cisco laughed, flatly. "Turns out losing my powers and not having vibes anymore doesn't make the trauma nightmares go away. Who'dathunk?"  
  
She reached over, hugging him. “Cisco,” she murmured. He let her hug him, reaching up to hug her back. She could hear his heartbeat.  
  
“I don’t know.” He sounded lost.    
  
“You matter. You’re important. I’m hugging you because you’re important and if I let go Frost is going to go murder Nash, which I don’t think will actually get rid of Thawne, so probably not the best idea, but mostly because you  _ Matter _ , Cisco Ramon. Things have been weird, and terrible, and some things have been really bad, but...God, Cisco. I just--if Cecile hadn’t been there--I can’t lose you.”

“Cait--”   
  
“I can’t. I won’t.” She finally let go enough to pull back, watching him. “I can’t fix … most of what’s going on. I don’t even know if Barry’s plan will work. But we both need to try, and… just… we’ll figure things out, and we’ll find a way to beat Thawne, for real this time.” She did not say,  _ And you’ll be able to sleep easy. _

  
Cisco nodded, still looking troubled, but less than he had.   
  
“And,” she continued, “I can’t make you believe me. But I can tell you, as many times as it takes. You’re important, you being alive is important. Not because of --all this. Just..because of you. You matter.”   
  
She did not say, _I love you._   
  
She didn’t have to. 

**Author's Note:**

> coments make the world go round :) pls love me.


End file.
